1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a method capable of securing personal privacy information (e.g., race, religion, sexual orientation, and the like) in Audience Measurement (“AM”) for measuring users' utilization patterns of services or in a digital broadcasting system.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is expected that a service for providing content or advertisements suitable for users' tastes by measuring users' utilization or consumption patterns in broadcasting services or content-providing services will be widely used as one of user-customized services. A basic function to be necessarily executed for this service is Audience Measurement (AM). The basic function of AM is to record the services which are utilized by users, when the users utilized the services, where the users utilized the services, how long the users utilized the services, and how the users utilized the services. An AM action may consist of transmitting an AM execution command, executing AM, and reporting an AM execution result, wherein an AM data storage place may be a content consuming device or a server managed by a service provider. Since AM records all of the content and services utilized by users, all of the users' personal information may be disclosed. Although many countries around the world prevent, by law, anyone from recording or using data, from which a user's characteristics may be inferred from a service or content utilized by the user, a user's race, religion or sexual orientation may be guessed. Thus, there is a problem in that the current broadcasting service technology are not in line with such legal regulations.
In the prior art, if a service provider executes AM, using a terminal or a smart card, the terminal or the smart card may record the AM data even for services or content which may allow a user's sensitive characteristics to be disclosed.